Catholics for Trump?

I was listening to an NPR report this morning. They were talking about a telephone call between Trump and Catholic leaders, most specifically Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.  It seems clear that Dolan was actively seeking to provide the support of the Catholic Church to the re-election of Donald Trump. In a prior appearance, it seems clear Dolan has a pleasant relationship with Trump. Here they are at a dinner party prior to Trump’s election.

In news reports on the call and a subsequent interview on Fox, CRUX and the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) report:

“The capitulation is complete.

Without a whimper from any of his fellow bishops, the cardinal archbishop of New York has inextricably linked the Catholic Church in the United States to the Republican Party and, particularly, President Donald Trump.

It was bad enough that Cardinals Timothy Dolan of New York and Sean O'Malley of Boston, joined by Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, currently also president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, participated in Trump's phone version of a campaign rally on April 25. With hundreds of others on the call, including Catholic educators, the bishops were once again masterfully manipulated. They previously gave Trump certain campaign footage when they delivered Catholics to his speech at the March for Life rally in Washington early in the year.

Now Trump will have Dolan's language The whole cringe-worthy exchange (yes, Trump did self-describe as "the best" president "in the history of the Catholic church") was made worse the next day when Dolan provided more campaign footage from inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in announcing that the president was "worshiping with us," purportedly livestreaming the Mass at the White House.

Friendships have existed in the past between U.S. presidents and princes of the church. How those affected the church's involvement in politics and policy, negatively or positively, differed from one circumstance to another. But it is rare, if not unprecedented, that the church's leadership apparatus would be co-opted to the degree seen in the case of Trump.

Certainly, it is without precedent that the leadership would cozy up so cravenly to a president whose most consistent attribute is an uncontrollable propensity for lying, continuously and about everything. He is dangerously disconnected from reality and is defined by characteristics that normally are condemned from pulpits.

In People of Hope, a book-length conversation Dolan conducted with journalist John L. Allen Jr. published in 2012, a chapter is devoted to politics in which the cardinal concedes that there is an understandable perception that the U.S. bishops are in a "de facto," in the questioner's words, alliance with the Republican Party.

The reality, Dolan contends, is more complex. "My experience is that we bishops are actually fairly scrupulous in wanting to avoid any partisan flavor."

One might reasonably conclude today that such scrupulosity has gone out the window. For Dolan and his fellow episcopal travelers, the all-consuming issue is abortion. That tops the agenda in any political consideration. Allen asked: "Are you saying that the perception of being in bed with the Republicans, or the political Right, is the PR price that has to be paid for taking a strong stance on abortion?"

"Yes, that's exactly right," Dolan answered.

Unfortunately, the bishops have paid a much higher price than poor public relations in their political strategy the past four decades. Abortion is a serious subject that they've turned into a political volleyball in a game with no winners except the groups on the extremes of the issue who cash in every four years, sustaining careers and an endless debate.”

So, should we be surprised that the Archbishop, a close friend and public supporter of a man who seems to violate virtually every principle of the Archbishop’s professed faith, decided to offer the support of his church?  It is asserted that his support for Trump has something to do with abortion. That is, ostensibly Trump opposes abortion, and therefore the Archbishop supports him.  Apparently, had Adolph Hitler opposed abortion, Cardinal Dolan would have supported him also.

The thing is Dolan has now committed the entire Holy Roman Catholic Church to a mechanism for support of Donald Trump. The fact that Trump violates virtually every principle (maybe even including abortion) of that Church system is apparently irrelevant to the Archbishop. I assume with all of his sexual abuse of women, Trump has almost undoubtedly caused one or more abortions to occur, whether he was personally involved or not. He often remains an aside to many of the unpleasantries he creates in other peoples’ lives.

But the central question now is, what will Pope Francis do about this threat to the authority of the Catholic Church? If that Church does nothing, then officially the Catholic Church has endorsed Donald Trump.  To me, that would signal the final moral bankruptcy of a church that has existed for hundreds of years, even if it is but a hollow memory of its founding principles. Endorsing Trump would, in my view be worse than the common Church practice of shipping off its rapist priests from one parish to another without dealing with the underlying issue.

I see no alternative for the Pope except to literally fire Cardinal Dolan. I don’t mean, moving him to a different city parish. I mean firing him. Kicking him out of the Church hierarchy, and never letting him darken the doors of the Church in any city.  Failing that, perhaps it would really be time for the Holy Roman Catholic Church to declare moral bankruptcy, sell all of its assets and distribute the resulting funds to the World’s poor.